Blog Post #13: The American Dream

The "American Dream" is the grand idea that every citizen of the United States of America should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, dedication, and ambition. It has now become a widespread term to describe the typical American way of life. No matter what social class, ethnic group, or what one's "wealth" is; everyone living in this country should have the same opportunity to accomplish their dreams and aspire to what they want to be in life. To me, "wealth" describes how much money or possessions a person has. Good wealth or bad wealth is determined by how much or how little money a person makes. In America, it should not matter what a person's wealth is because of the American Dream and everyone having the same chance to do what they want in life.

Americans have very mixed attitudes toward wealth and poverty. According to a national poll conducted by National Public Radio (NPR), the Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University's Kennedy School asked nearly 2,000 Americans 18 or older, "Which is the bigger cause of poverty today: that people are not doing enough to help themselves out of poverty, or that circumstances beyond their control cause them to be poor?" The responses were fairly divided  as about 45 percent of these college students said that poverty had to do with certain circumstances, whether these circumstances were issues with employment, housing, natural disasters, family situation, and so on. Others said that poverty is caused by the person or family "not doing enough" to keep their good wealth. They feel like they were not actually doing enough to help themselves. The poor were more likely blame the "circumstances" more than themselves for their financial hardships. 

As far as my attitude towards this issue goes, I feel like a lot of poverty has to do with a lack of motivation or hard work. I know this may seem like a stereotype but it may be true. Some may lack ambition or the motivation to get ahead or succeed in what they want to do. Another circumstance could be that they did not receive a proper education and do not know how to maintain a good lifestyle and were forced into poverty because they did not know how to handle themselves. It's an unfortunate situation, but sadly it's reality. Poverty is everywhere and there are varied causes and circumstances to this, but it's why a good education and having a lot of motivation to work hard to succeed is so important.